Here are 100 books that Yoke fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
This little memoir (some 200 postcard-size pages) packs so much yoga punch.
Clendenin goes through a lot of bad stuff—a lifelong drinking problem, the death of a relative, a life-altering medical diagnosis—but she relays it all in such a fun, girlfriendy way you can’t help but cheer her on.
Her saving grace is the yoga teacher training she begins as the book does, which carries her through the awful life events. My favorite is the way she summarizes and modernizes the four parts of the classic—and very obtuse—Yoga Sutras (e.g., one take: “don’t let that nasty ego tell you who you aren’t”).
“It was nothing at first. Just a little twitch. My left ring finger was twitching, slowly, almost languidly, the way fishing line does when you’ve hooked something without any strength. Like a baby perch. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.
My first thought: Stress?
(Nope, think again)”
And here begins a journey that Anne Clendening never saw coming, tried to deny, avoid, postpone and otherwise reject. After all, how does a dark L.A. hippy chick who swore off booze at 22 fit an early onset Parkinson's diagnosis into a life of bartending in Hollywood rock clubs and yoga?…
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
This spunky yoga memoir came out more than a decade ago (the same time as my first women’s yoga novel), and it remains my all-time favorite fun yoga read.
When 25-year-old, death-obsessed, cigarette-smoking Morrison follows her beloved yoga teacher on a Bali retreat, she’s too cynical to believe everything she’s learning. Still, she gives it her best shot (even while occasionally feeling called to wine, brownies, and “the prana of the Prada”).
When Morrison finally stops trying to reach her unattainable ideal of enlightenment, she comes to understand that self-acceptance is a key yoga aim. If you haven’t read this laugh-out-loud book, do so now!
What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect . . .
When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-month yoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from a twenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into her enchanting yoga teacher, Indra—a woman who seems to have found it all: love, self, and God.
But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds that her beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up…
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
I loved Bechdel’s amazing graphic memoirFun Home, so I had high expectations for this book about her lifetime love affair with exercise and, eventually, yoga—and she doesn’t disappoint.
The captions to some 200 pages of her fantastic cartoon drawings are honest to a fault, covering repressed emotions, relationship difficulties, and the fear she doesn’t deserve the good things in life.
In more recent years (time-bound events like Trump’s ride down the escalator appear in background scenes), Bechdel strives to forge coherent meaning from her life history and her infatuation with Jack Kerouac and other deceased spiritual authors.
The Best Graphic Book of 2021 by Publishers Weekly | A New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2021 | A New York Times Notable Book | An Autostraddle Best Queer Book of the Year | A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year | A St. Louis Post Dispatch Best Book of the Year | NPR, 12 Books NPR Staffers Loved | Shelf Awareness Best Books of 2021
From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
Most yoga memoirs and novels are written by women, so I was intrigued when I first stumbled on this book by a hard-charging CEO who picks up his family and moves to Bali.
While there, Feder takes up yoga, meditation, and painting. Like any good yoga memoirist, he details all the ways the sabbatical transforms him, his relationship with his kids and, upon returning to the U.S., his work life. But he’s also honest about how the mind tries to sabotage his efforts at every turn.
I very much enjoyed this book and think it’s especially valuable for men looking to take a similar inward spiritual journey (even if, like the protagonists of my yoga novels, they never leave home).
The Eat, Pray, Love for busy executives, Take Off Your Shoes invites the reader to join a journey of self-rediscovery.
If 10% Happier made you more mindful, and Wild more adventuresome, Take Off Your Shoes will ground you and help you find your soul.
"The magic of Ben Feder's narrative is that we see our own lives unfold as we travel alongside him on his journey. His poignant inner monologue touches us and emboldens us to make braver choices in our own lives. We are left richer for the voyage." Eric Langshur, author of the New York Times bestseller Start…
I discovered cannabis as good medicine in 2009, when my gynecologist recommended it for severe dysmenorrhea. When I couldn’t find a cookbook offering healthy, sophisticated cannabis-infused recipes, I decided to write one. As an amazing group of cannabis chefs taught me how to cook with cannabis and shared their recipes, I fell in love with the plant as well as the open-hearted community that supports it. I followed the Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook, published in 2015, with Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis, a textbook tracing the plant’s culinary history to ancient Persian and India, in 2019. I’ve learned how to grow my own, and I write regularly about cannabis trends and liberation.
My friend Chris Kilham, an ethnobotanist, medicine hunter, and yoga master, discovered decades ago that thoughtful ganja intake can enhance yoga practice and pave the way for a life of peace, health, and well-being. This book offers an in-depth guide to blending yoga with cannabis as well as a killer sequence of cannabis-enhanced postures and instructions for breathwork and meditation practice. I refer to this book again and again.
An in-depth guide to blending the practice of yoga with cannabis
* Examines the physical, mental, spiritual, and energetic effects of cannabis and yoga, including their effects on the nervous system and chakras
* Explains how yoga practice offers a way to tune the human nervous system and how, through the endocannabinoid system, cannabis harmonizes a multitude of functions, from respiration to pain control, in ways that enhance yoga
* Offers an illustrated sequence of cannabis-yoga asanas (postures) developed to awaken kundalini, open energy channels, accelerate healing, and unlock access to unbounded states of consciousness
Growing up I never felt good enough. I was called ‘tubby’ and ‘little tubette.’ I tried to people-please my way to love and acceptance, being who I thought others wanted and needed me to be. I achieved. I followed (most of) the rules and was nice and polite. But none of that worked to cultivate a balanced or meaningful life. Not surprisingly, this led me to a career in psychology and a love of learning about how to help others with similar struggles. Reading and writing self-development books has completely changed my life for the better. I hope this list will help you do the same!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had a rather complicated relationship with exercise.
It always felt like something I was *supposed* to do and as a person who’s never been particularly athletic, I just didn’t like it. Until I read The Joy of Movement. This is a love letter to exercise. And it’s all based in science. McGonigal is an absolute whiz at making research interesting and accessible.
By the end, I finally found my joy in movement and now I look forward to exercising most days of the week!
Now in paperback. The bestselling author of The Willpower Instinct introduces a surprising science-based book that doesn't tell us why we should exercise but instead shows us how to fall in love with movement.
Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it's a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn't have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy.
Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some…
Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica — the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath — to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The…
I am an addictions physician with a passion for the field of food addiction. I have spoken, taught, and written about this subject for over 15 years. I am the author of Food Junkies: Recovery from Food Addiction; have a thriving free Facebook group: I'm Sweet Enough: Sugar-Free for Life (which you are invited to join),and a podcast called Food Junkies—to catch up on the latest in the field. I am also a food addict in recovery for over 15 years and have maintained a 100-pound weight loss since then.
This book is written by the founder of the very successful weight loss food program, Susan Peirce Thompson. She covers the science and clinical picture of food addiction. Which she believes is essential for long-term successful weight loss.
This book is very public/reader-friendly. She is also a food addict in recovery and is very open about her trials and tribulations. I find her very engaging and personable.
Over 99% of people who try to lose weight don't succeed. They don't get slender and they don't stay slender long term. The average dieter spends a significant amount of money and makes four or five new attempts each year. Four or five new attempts each year with almost no hope of success. Only 1% of people will get down to their goal weight on traditional diets. Susan Peirce Thompson. Ph.D., suggests that there's something fishy going on here, something important we're not paying attention to. We don't have an obesity problem; we have an obesity mystery-and she has a…
I am an integrative child psychiatrist with a special focus on how screen-time detunes the nervous system, causing issues with sleep, mood, focus, and behavior. In fact, technology use is the most underestimated influence of our time; it causes problems whose connections aren’t always obvious, leads to misdiagnosis and overmedication, and wastes resources. I am passionate about helping children and families methodically reverse these changes using screen fast protocols that provide dramatic improvements in functioning and well-being. I speak regularly to parents’ groups, schools, and health providers, and my work has been featured on such outlets as NPR, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Psychology Today, and Good Morning America.
Discussing the negative impacts of screen time (and its close cousin, sedentariness) can feel overwhelming. In contrast, discovering ways to make the brain stronger is empowering. In this startling book, Dr. Ratey explores exercise’s dramatic impact on the brain and shows how it can not only improve cognitive functioning but actually make the brain bigger and more connected. While as a psychiatrist I have long-prescribed exercise to improve depression, anxiety, and sleep, after reading Spark I had a newfound respect and awe for not just the power of exercise but for the plasticity of the brain itself. This book gives new hope to those who have or work with kids with neuropsychiatric conditions or who are struggling, stuck, or otherwise disadvantaged.
Exercise is not only good for the body: it can transform your mind too. This new scientific revolution will teach you how to boost brain cells, protect yourself against mental illness and dementia, and ensure success in exams and the workplace.
We all know that exercise is good for the body. But did you know that it can transform your mind? This new scientific revolution will teach you how to boost brain cells, protect yourself against mental illness and dementia, and ensure success in exams and the workplace.
Follow the SPARK! training regimen and build your brain to its peak…
I’ve been involved in weight training for over three decades, from a competitor (setting state and national powerlifting records), to coach (for amateur bodybuilders and powerlifters), to author of four best-selling fitness books. All of my training partners, students, and readers have told me the same thing—my background in weight training knowledge, history, and techniques have enabled me to provide them with the expertise, motivation, and longevity to improve both their physical and mental lives.
This is the book I started with, and the one almost all aspiring bodybuilders get as well. And for good reason. It contains everything you need to get started, from exercise explanations to workout programs, nutrition, dealing with injuries, posing, and competition preparation. Of course, the author seems to be a reliable source of this information ;-) Even after three decades of bodybuilding training, I still reach for this book for inspiration and information.
From elite bodybuilding competitors to gymnasts, from golfers to fitness gurus, anyone who works out with weights must own this book - a book that only Arnold Schwarzenegger could write, a book that has earned its reputation as "the bible of bodybuilding."
Inside, Arnold covers the very latest advances in both weight training and bodybuilding competition, with new sections on diet and nutrition, sports psychology, the treatment and prevention of injuries, and methods of training, each illustrated with detailed photos of some of bodybuilding's newest stars.
Covering every level of expertise and experience, with his unique perspective as a seven-time…
Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood.
Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into…
NLP at Work has led me to many different countries and experiences and, most of all, an ability to choose how I live my life. NLP; Neuro Linguistic Programming is a way of studying how we do what we do, especially when we do things that are outstanding. The difference that makes the difference is the strapline, and that difference is invariably some unconscious, intuitive act – often rooted in how we think and what we believe. I have sought to present both the tools to study in this kind of way and some of the results of that – the techniques that can be discovered with NLP.
The opening paragraph contains these words, "Do you feel you have made the best of your genetic endowment?" Most people, in my experience, say ‘no’ to that. What a waste and what a price to pay as you age if you are not taking care of yourself in a way that lets you move and live in a state of freedom. I have studied Feldenkrais for many years and the awareness I have gained allows me to recognise what I am doing to myself both good and bad. The answers to this freedom are simple yet elusive as the title suggests. As Moshe Feldenkrais says, "If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want." This book is a powerful foundation for the practice of Feldenkrais and learning how to overcome difficulties, pain, and anxiety to move and live with grace and freedom in the way you…
Scientist, martial artist, and founder of the method that bears his name, Moshe Feldenkrais wrote several influential books on the relationship between movement, learning, and health. In The Elusive Obvious he presents ideas that are more relevant today than when the book was first published, as current research strongly supports many of the insights on which the Feldenkrais Method is based. This beautiful new edition is ready to be treasured by an emerging generation of somatic practitioners, movement teachers, performing artists, and anyone interested in self-improvement and healing. The two main strands of the Feldenkrais Method—Awareness Through Movement and Functional…
